Winning steak ends as Kazmir, A’s silence bats in 5-1 loss

If you knew nothing about baseball and decided to watch Saturday night’s game out of boredom, I’m pretty sure it would have turned you off from the sport forever. There wasn’t much offense, both teams played bad defense, Hiroki Kuroda was very wild, and play was delayed 38 minutes because the lights at the O.co Coliseum wouldn’t turn on. The Yankees lost 5-1 to end their four-game winning streak.

New York’s lack of offense — they had three hits and three walks, and the final 15 men they sent to the plate made outs — had more to do with the Athletics’ pitching staff being really good than their offense being bad, I thought. Scott Kazmir was pretty sharp and the Dan Otero/Scott Doolittle combination is quietly one of the best in the game. The Yankees scored their only run on a throwing error by shortstop Andy Parrino. They had another runner thrown out at the plate on the contact play.

Kuroda, on the other hand, was as wild as I’ve ever seen him as a Yankee. He threw two pitches to the backstop, bounced a bunch of 55-footers, and was generally all over the place. It’s surprising he managed to throw 55 strikes out of his 93 total pitches. Kuroda had no idea where the ball was going at all. A two-out rally in the second and some terrible defense in the fifth led to four runs in 4.2 innings. Kelly Johnson picked up a weak grounder that appeared to be rolling foul and John Ryan Murphy allowed two passed balls. Everyone can now use that inning to justify sending him down for Frankie Cervelli next week.

MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs some other stats, and ESPN the updated standings. That might have been the worst game of the year in terms of watchability. The Yankees wrap up their ten-game turned nine-game road trip on Sunday afternoon, when they send Vidal Nuno to the mound in the rubber game against righty Jesse Chavez.

Minor League Update: Here is the scoreboard for Saturday’s games. Here’s the box score for the High-A Florida State League All-Star Game. 2B Rob Refsnyder went hitless again, C Peter O’Brien homered, OF Aaron Judge had two hits, LHP Manny Banuelos threw three scoreless innings in the rain-suspended game, and RHP Luis Severino struck out eight in six innings. C Gary Sanchez remains glued to the bench for disciplinary reasons.